BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, 8 July 2014

BBC Radio Cambridgeshire – Paul Stainton’s Bigger Breakfast Show.

broadcast at 06.25 on Tues 8 July 2014.

Paul Stainton: So the Tour de France may have left Cambridge but another bike race leaves the city today. Three friends will leave Parker’s Piece to cycle to Hong Kong! It’s all to raise cash for Prostate Cancer UK. Nick Codrington is one of them, and he joins me now. Nick, good morning.

Nick Codrington: Good morning Paul.

PS: How are you?

NC: Doing well actually. Bit of an early rise though. [Both laugh]

PS: What time are you leaving?

NC: We’re about to go to Cambridge, we’re leaving from the Senate House about 11.30 this morning.

PS: Oh right, OK. Why now, why Hong Kong, it’s a long way.

NC: Well, it is quite a long way, but actually, as crazy as it sounds, it’s been a project on the back burner for a long time now. There are three of us who’ve just graduated from Cambridge, and we’ve spent the last I guess 3 to 6 months just cooped up in libraries, and kind of wanted to go and see the great outdoors. So it’s one of those kind of projects you think if you don’t do it now then when are you actually going to get round to doing it.

PS: Yes, is there a reason you’re doing it for prostate cancer?

NC: Absolutely. Well we thought about doing it for cancer from the outset really, because it’s one of those things everyone’s hit by. So it’s personal to all members of the team. And prostate seems quite under-represented compared to, I’m sure you’ve heard of the Selfie campaign [PS: hmm], for breast cancer, and we were inspired by the Men United campaign we saw at the Varsity football match in Cambridge.

PS: So how many of you are going?

NC: There’ll be three of us, well four of us in total – three Cambridge grads, one from Dublin. This leg, the Tour de France leg down to London, will be three of us.

PS: Are you following the exact route then?

NC: Well, the professionals have done 150k, we’re going to manage 120, doing the kind of rough route. I think 150 may be pushing it for one day [both laugh]. But in total, over nine months we’re planning to cover 15,000, so I hope that redeems us for cutting the leg short from Cambridge to London.

PS: So you think it’s going to take about nine months to do it?

NC: We’re giving ourselves nine months, yeah.

PS: Wow, that is a heck of a year out, Nick.

NC: Well as I said if you don’t do it now, then you get on the rat race and suddenly you don’t know where you’ve ended up, do you.

PS: No, of course. And so the route then, you’re going down to London, then over to France, where from there?

NC: Well I can rattle off the countries if you like.

PS: Yeah, go on.

NC: We’re going UK, France, straight into Belgium, Germany, Austria, Hungary, then, I need to get this right, then we’re going through Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey. That’s the first leg. That should be relatively straightforward. We haven’t done much fitness work, at all really, so we hoping that the run-up in Western Europe will be enough

NC: Yeah, that’s what it is, Le Tour de Globe. And so we get to Turkey in about September. Then comes the interesting stuff in Turkey, not that Western Europe is boring, that sounds a bit silly. Then we’re doing Turkey, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, China.

PS: Wow, that’s tricky. [Both laugh] Stay safe. How do we get behind you, how do we support you?

NC: Well, we’ve got a Twitter, which is @jtteast. Our team name is Journey to the East. We’ve also made a website which is Journey-to-the-East, but hyphenated inbetween. So we’re trying to drum up support and awareness for the cause really.

PS: OK, and if we do want to donate, how do we do that?

NC: We’ve got a Just Giving page as well, so justgiving.com/journeytotheeast.

PS: Listen, all the very best my friend, you and your friends. Stay safe and enjoy your nine-month bike ride.

NC: Absolutely, thanks very much Paul.

PS: No problem. Nick Codrington, charity cyclist, cycling for cancer and we’ve got all the details here if you want to help him out. The Tour de Globe gets underway later on this morning. That’s a long way, and a long time and a lot of countries.